Terracotta Charioteer

Today's the day .............................. for a cultural exchange

We're on our way by train down to Wales - but there's a few hours to go yet before we get to our destination because we stopped off in Liverpool on the way.

We wanted to go to a major exhibition that's on in the World Museum until October all about China's First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang.  For more than 2,000 years, an underground army of life-size terracotta figures, horses, chariots and much more guarded his tomb until a chance discovery in 1974 unlocked the secrets of a vanished empire.  It was a brilliant exhibition.

It's a different thing of course nowadays - visiting an exhibition like this - because everyone is taking pictures with their phones.  Some don't seem to bother looking at the actual exhibits at all - and one girl made me laugh because she had her back to them, taking a selfie!

We also went to the Walker Art Gallery to see the portrait of the actress Kim Cattrall, painted by the winner of the Portrait Artist of the Year Competition that was on television recently.  That's it in as an extra.  It was a stunning portrait but unfortunately the gallery had hung it in the middle of a room full of gloomy, overpowering paintings by Victorian artists.  It needed a much more light and airy space.

So now we are somewhere on the magnificent Calon Cymru Line heading southward to eventually alight at Llandovery - in about twenty stations' time ................................